DEFINING DOWN DEVIANCY
By: Steve Higginbotham
On December 30, 2002, a British television station announced that they were going to air a Chinese artist eating the body of a deceased baby. It was touted as a form of “artistic expression.” In the Fall of 2002, Howard Stern promised to promote a man’s music on air if he would eat a raw cow brain and the genitals of a bull on his television show. He did. Last week, while channel surfing during prime time, I paused as a “Fear Factor” contestant bobbed for diving rings in a huge vat of cow’s blood.
Had enough? There’s more, much more, but surely I don’t need to convince the reader that we are on the moral downgrade. Deviancy has been “defined down” to the point that perverse and disgusting acts are portrayed by our media and we somehow find entertainment value in them. What was once appalling and disgusting now solicits from us a chuckle or little more than a wince.
Where does it stop? How does it stop? It could stop nearly overnight if people who claim to be followers of Jesus would act like it. It could stop immediately if people who claimed to desire higher moral standards in our society would insist upon it. What if every person who occupies a pew in a church building every Sunday in America would stop going to movies, stop watching television shows which depict deviancy, and in turn became vocal opponents to all forms of media which depict some form of depravity? Money talks.
Friends, I’ve about come to the conclusion that our society, which consists of a vast majority of people who claim to be followers of Jesus, is as deviant as it is either because that’s simply the way we want it, or we’re just too apathetic to care.
May I challenge you to affirm, as did Joshua, “As for me and my house, we’ll serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) Enough is enough! Take a stand!